Journalism

A Gemini Selling a Taurus
business story for The Washington Post
March 1997

This past winter I got it in my head to sell cars. I don't know why; the need for cash does funny things to people.  After talking with several dealers on the Route 7 strip at Tysons Corner, I settled on Tysons Ford, got hired in January . . . and quit four weeks later. Not that the work was so awful—in fact, the people were generally decent, the showroom was new, the product was good. Putting in those interminable hours was a drag, but mostly it was the selling situation that did me in. Car-selling has always been a challenge, but now the changing relationship between car buyer and seller may have altered things forever.

Even dealers recognize that many customers are finally fed up with the car-buying game. (So are more than a few salespeople. Five weeks after I left, two of our original group of four remained. Auto sales force turnover nationally is an incredible 38%.) A sizeable percentage of buyers is just too informed, too wary or too busy to spend three hours, the average time it takes to make a deal. One of my customers drove up in a Porsche, took a test drive in a top-of-the-line Explorer, told me to get him lease figures and left. The rest of the deal was transacted by phone and fax.

The business is also changing because cars and trucks are made better, with longer warranties, less need for service, higher performance, durability and so on. All this makes car purchases less frequent and the dealership less important. The main factor, how-ever, is the growing appeal of leasing. With more cars coming off lease in two to three years, the used car market is booming and new cars are tougher to sell. The automobile, in short, is on the road to becoming a commodity rather than an object of perceived value.

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